


paradox.

by blurrytyler



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Abuse, M/M, Rape, confusing idk, joshler - Freeform, sorry - Freeform, this is????
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-21 13:26:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11358432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blurrytyler/pseuds/blurrytyler
Summary: tyler endures torment, yet love from josh dun.





	paradox.

**Author's Note:**

> HEY! its been a Hot Minute since i've posted anything on the website, so here's this mess. if youre confused, that was sort of my intention. memories ARE not in sequential order, to emphasize the confusion of the relationship. NOTE: there is depictions of abuse and although not formerly titled, also depictions of rape. if these actions make you upset, please do not read my work. nonetheless, thank you and i promise i will post more.

**nononononono.**  
his mind is a tsunami of thoughts, an oblivion of worries, remorse and grief. a black hole in his very own head, filled with someone screaming one phrase on a constant repetitive cycle.  
  
 **nononononono.**  
his bedroom floor is cold and scattered with crumpled pieces of lined notebook paper. tyler can't recall how they got there, doesn't even remember writing them and angrily crumpling the paper together. he unfolds a page, nothing more than a quick doodle of a person he has never met, captioned _josh_  in sloppy handwriting nearly undecipherable.   
  
 **nononononono.**  
every inconspicuous corner in his room is whispering something vile to him. he hears an unfamiliar voice mumble  _remember_ over and over again in the corner with his trash can that is over-flooded with the same pieces of crumpled paper. tyler hurriedly crawls to the corner, flattens out every paper buried within the can. josh. josh. josh. josh. all of them are the same. tyler still can't remember himself drawing this; he notices blood in the corner of the awful piece of paper.  
 **nononononono.**  
 something in his head is screaming at him to remember. tyler sits, dumbfounded. the last thing he recalls is crying over a now forgotten reason. tyler wants to remember. rememberrememberremeber.  
 **nononononono.**  
josh. josh. josh. josh.  _blue_. tyler remembers blue.  
 **nononononono.**  
  
  
  
 ** _"blue would look nice on you, it would accentuate your eyes."_  
 _"you're flattering." his tongue sticks out in between his teeth when he smiles, it's an oddly comforting sight for tyler._  
  
nononononono.**  
tyler recoils until his back hits his bedroom wall, his gasp is so sharp his lungs fill with all the tension in the room. his eyes widen, he stares at the ceiling like there's something there, starring back at him with equal shock. tyler's brain fumbles, all he knows is that he's breathing so heavily he's sure he can hear his ribs crackling, like the sound of firecrackers, and that he  _hates_  the color blue.  
 **nononononono.**  
 _remember_

there is one portion of his brain yelling this at him. rememberrememberremember.  
  
 **nononononono.  
**  
  
  
 _ **"i love-"  
"don't say it, i'm not ready." tyler says shakily. he fiddles with the blue haired boy's hands and blinks hard.  
"i understand."  
**_  
 **nonononononono.**  
tyler feels the entwining of his soul as loose threads slowly are being pulled out.  with each arbitrary memory playing back in his demented mind, it's another thread being violently pulled at. he's slowly becoming nothing more than one piece of weak thread, losing all meaning it had before. his brain has concave,  he is nothing.  
  
 **nonononononono.  
**  
  
  
 ** _"you remind me of a poem." tyler is told this at a music shop, as his hands skim through records. he turns his head to face the lanky man beside him, he wears thick sumdged eyeliner and holds onto a pack of newports, his hair is a diluted shade of pink. his eyes remind tyler the color of almonds._**  
  
  
 **nononononononono.**  
  
the echos of constant voices have numbed tyler completely. a sudden, familiar, soothing voice whispers something inaudible into tyler's ear. tyler can't recall where he recognizes it from, but the sense of familiarity gives tyler a feeling of normalcy, like everything has been and will be perfectly and utterly  _fine._  
  
 **nononononononono.**  
  
  
 _ **"what poem?" tyler quietly says, in a near whisper to the pink haired man.  
"i don't remember the name. it was something about underrated simple beauty." he pauses. "instantaneous infatuation." the man adds, tyler nods.  
the man with the pink hair fiddles with the sewn-on alien patch on his worn-out, grimy jacket. "poems are the fundamental structure to my outlook on life." he speaks softly. "i'm a pretty direct person, sorry."  
"i like it, it adds character." tyler admits, settling on a certain record, the bends by radiohead. "not many strangers would tell another fellow stranger their unseasoned admiration, it's  sort of an appealing characteristic." tyler walks to the check out with the record tucked underneath his arm, he keeps his head low, eyes locked on his feet.  
"are you running away from me?" the pink hair man said with his mouth in a grin, he pulls out a smoke and lets the cig dance in between his fingers. "i thought it was going well."  
"i don't-" tyler chokes, he clears his throat and continues his intense stare at his shoes. "i'm not running away."  
"good." he says, his voice is low, he puts the unlit smoke in his mouth and lets it dangle loosely from the corner. "good, i'll see you here tomorrow."  
"i dont-"  
"tomorrow. at four. if you can't find me, tell pat up there," the pink boy points at an employee restocking CDS, "you're looking for josh."  
"josh, i don't-"  
"tomorrow. farwell, poem boy."  
  
  
**_ **nononononononono**  .  
 _josh.  
_ tyler's banging his head against the wooden floor boards, hard. _who are you?_   he screeches,  _get-out-of-my-head._  
tyler has the inability to comprehend these incohesive thoughts. he ponders at the thought of this unfamiliar man and his oddly colored hair and his fondness for poems.   
he wants his mind to shutupshutupshutup.  
  
 **nononononononono.  
**

  
  
  
__**"i remember the name of the poem." josh says. it's been several months since the initial encounter, the poem nearly slipped tyler's mind.  
"what's the name?"  
"i can't tell you, not now at least." josh takes a drag out of his smoke and ruffles tyler's hair. "one day, i promise."**

  
  
**nononononononono.**  
he's sick to his stomach.   
 _i don't want to remember_ he screams to no one. he sits in his empty room, his hands tangled in his hair, pulling. strands fall out in a lump mess. the old memories are torturing the mind of tyler joseph.   
 _i don't want to remember! stop!_    
his eyes fall onto the pile of glass near his bed, along side it were several scattered puddles of what he presumes is his own blood.  
  
  
 **nononononononono.**  
  
  
 ** _"hurt yourself."_  
 _"what?"_  
 _"do it. so i don't have to do it myself."_**  
  
  
 **nonononononononono.**  
tyler can suddenly recall the faint memory of digging sharp glass into his thighs. hurtyourselfhurtyourselfhurtyourself.  
 _do it so he won't have to_ , tyler remembers whispering this low to himself.  _do it._  
  
 **nonononononononono.**  
tyler has a throbbing, persistent migraine. he remembers the way it felt to slowly become so absorbed into someone.  
 **  
nonononononononono.  
**  
  
 _ **"it is the third date, i believe i am entitled to one kiss, joseph."  
"i never clarified that this was a so-called date."  
"don't deny it, it is a self-proclaimed date. i don't need clarification." josh smirks as he takes hold of tyler's hand. they're walking down the road, josh generously walking tyler back home.  
"is there some sort of 'date' contract that i was not aware of?"  
"maybe." josh mumbles, he kicks a small pebble and watches it skip across the paved road.  
"i'll kiss you," tyler starts, he turns to look eye-to-eye at josh, "only if you tell me the name of the poem first."  
josh laughs lightly, shaking his head in disapproval. "i'll tell you the name of the poem if you kiss me first."  
"you make a strong deal, josh." tyler smiles. "deal."  
josh's places his hand on the back of tyler's neck and his palms are a significant warm contrast to the crisp cold air. he pulls tyler in and their cold lips press together, tyler has an uncanny internal feeling arising. he dismisses it and pulls away after several moments.  
he rests his forehead against josh's. "so," he breaths out, "what's the name?"  
"i'll never tell."  
**_  
  
 **nonononononononono.**  
 _trust your gut, dumbass._  
  
 **nonononononononono.**  
  
 _do you remember the first time he hit you?_  tyler breaths out to himself, lying flat on his back, staring at the ceiling that seems to be spinning. his eyes brimmed with tears, to tyler it feels like acid as they cascade along his cheeks.  _don't cry, fucking wimp. don't you fucking dare._  
  
 **nonononononononono.**  

  
_**tyler unlocks the door to his house, josh hovering over him. tyler opens the door and generously lets josh enter before himself.  
josh remains silent, and tyler doesn't break the nearly unbearable quietness. all that was heard was the hum of the heater and josh's heavy boots as he moved around the house.   
josh slithers throughout the house, analyzing cautiously. he says nothing as he stares at pictures, at furniture, scattered instruments, vinyls and CDS that were dispersed across the house.   
"you're sort of messy, aren't you?" josh finally mumbles, the disgust and attitude in his tone evident.   
"i" tyler starts, he chokes slightly on his words, "i try not to be."  
"it's fucking disgusting." he mutters. the sound of his boots hitting the floor grew louder and louder with each step in tyler's head.  
"i'm sorry." tyler whispers.  
something in josh changed within that moment. the atmosphere of the room shifted. his face seemed twisted. his eyes looked and felt darker and his ora emits something immensely sinister. tyler couldn't recognize josh as the man who enthused poems and bright colors, didn't see him as a man who recited sonnets, or anything that he used to see in josh.  he stood in the door way, with a fixed stare on tyler.  
josh ghosts over to tyler, his face resembled one belonging to a man with harmful intentions. "can i see your eyes?"  
"what-"  
"can i see your eyes?" josh whispers in the dark, grim room, as tyler quickly fumbles for a light switch, running his hand across the wall until he finally flicks on the light.  
to tyler, it felt like josh was peering into his eyes for days. he says nothing as he stares into his iris, and tyler is sure of it that he can read his thoughts, that josh was able to see his insides, sense his feelings. josh, without breaking his direct stare into tyler's eyes, flicks off the light.  
josh sighs, "fear", he mumbles, "i can feel the fear."  
a hard force swipes agaist tyler's cheek as he then topples to the hard wooden ground. tyler screams, josh hovers over tyler's weak, fearful body and spits at him.  
"youre afraid of me?" josh growls. he repeats this phrase on a constant loop, striking at tyler each time the sentence escapes his chapped lips. tyler is crawling on the messy floor like a child, his face lined with mucus, sweat, tears, and blood pouring from his nose.  
"how could you be afraid of me?"   
the rest of the night slipped away into the far crepuscular corner of tyler's mind, willingly forgotten the torment and abuse he suffers in the duration of that vile night. the gap from that moment to the very next thing he remembers must of been hours of now blank memories; the next and last thing tyler can recall from that night is his frail body cocooned in his blanket, holding himself tightly as he attempts to muffle his sobs while he hears josh buckle his belt, zip up his jeans, slip on his boots, and exit the front door.   
**_  
 **nononononono.  
** tyler's exasperated sobs echo across the room, the acoustics of his cries rebound off the bland white walls and back into his ear as screaming. he desires to retreat from this gruesome memory, he questions the details that remain and will always remain as a faded memory, yet, he has no intentions of ever reliving the presumed vileness of the night. tyler sprawls out across the floor staring at the ceiling above his atrocious head, pleading for forgetfulness, aspiring for amnesia.   
  
 **nononononono.  
**  
 __ **tyler and josh are under a thin, white sheet; their nude bodies are intertwined together as they playfully pull at each others hair. slow, messy kisses; smooth caressed skin; soft biting. they do not construed this elusive moment as anything more but mere lust, infatuation. tyler is not, and evidently will not, be ready for the ultimate commitment. currently, he just lives momentarily; his mind is fixated on the now, and the now was him and this colorful man, bare and lively.  
**  
 **nononononono.**  
  
STOPTHINKINGSTOPTHINKINGSTOPTHINKING. THISISATRICK. HENEVERLOVEDYOU.

**nononononono.**  
tyler is forcefully striking his head against these thick, dull walls. his brain is unable to comprehend the oximoron known as his relationship, with a man he remembers very little of. he can not recall anything of josh, other than his fondness for literature, his seducing half smirk, and the way his belt sounded buckling after a night tyler wishes could slip into the oblivion hole where the rest of these oppressed memories seem to vanish into.   
 **  
nononononono.**

__**hesitantly, tyler twists the knob to unveil the room in which he is generally aware of he'll get assaulted in. though, he cannot utter a noise, an emotion, for the consequences of expressing fear will not only result in painful, merciless beating, but as well as a promised premature demise.  
it was a routine, a grotesque ritual in the relationship, so completely gruesome that tyler has pondered if authorities should become involved. but, though no matter how hard he attempts to conceal it, tyler is ultimately afraid of josh, his capabilities, his strength, his demonic power. he presumes that he is knowledgeable that if he dared to get the police involved, josh will find some deviant way to ensure his promised death. he keeps his mouth sealed as he opens the door, flinching when he hears the sound of josh's boots once more, booming against the ground.  
tyler doesn't dare to swivel his body, even after hearing the unzipping of josh's jeans; tyler refuses to able himself to make a noise, to allow the forming tears escape the water line of eyes, he couldn't allow a duplicate of the brutal marking on his left eye.   
he is a painting of misfortune; the discolorations marked his skin like he is a canvas, fists were supplements to paintbrushes, the artist carved his skin, made tyler into a sculpture to embody brutality. the painting is autographed in the corner to ensure who this piece belongs to, tyler is property.  
"knees," is all josh has to grumble for the fear to erect within tyler's pit "now."  
he complies instantly, josh snaking his large fingers on tyler's belt loops on the dirty pair of jeans, forcibly and eagerly ripping them past his thighs and off of his ankles. tyler's sweaty palms rapidly swipe away nearly uncontrollable tears, before he is commanded place them against the mattress. his face is pushed down into the bed, instantly engulfed by the sheets. tyler can only compare this feeling to drowning; josh is the tsunami that flew over him, and tyler has sunk to the bottom of the ocean, choking on sand and rocks; his lungs fill with salt water, and his inside burn with hatred, confusion, aggression, and fear.   
  
the next thing tyler can seem to remember is josh spitting in his face with a grin illuminating power and dominance. "see you next time, sweetheart."**

**nononononono.**  
tyler ponders what was the eventual summary of the man named josh dun. some memories deemed him as an intellectual, powering, analytical, compassionate. tyler can (slightly) recall several events in which josh was a gentleman, a boy with a warming soul and comforting face. an instance that is clear to tyler was a moment in which the two boys sat on their porch, fumbling through old poetry books and interpreting them together. they were unified by literature, bonded by music and creativity.  
b u t     t h e y    a r e  
d i v i d e d      b y  
b   r   u   t   a   l   i   t  y.  
  
 **nononononono.**  
  
 ** _tyler was never the sort of person to become intoxicated for the sole reason of attempting to forget; but, it was this night he resorts to this unhealthy action, laid in the untrimmed grass in his backyard, adding another glass to the continuously growing pile of bottles of beer._  
 _"tyler, what are you doing?" josh whispered, his silhouette glowed to tyler; josh was an eclipse, a mere glimpse of shimmer illuminated slightly behind him. he appeared gentle within this moment, comforting even. josh crouched down to tyler, his hand ghosting over tyler's. josh's eyes were somehow still immensely vibrant in the crepuscular void of sky around them; they eased tyler, hypnotizing him to place his in-progress drink on the ground. "i don't know," tyler shakily replies, "i'm so sorry."_  
 _josh doesn't reply, rather pulling tyler's body into a warm embrace. tyler is nearly taken aback by this comforting gesture, unsure how to properly function; he doesn't hug back, rather his limbs hang loosely within the tight embrace._  
 _moments elapse, tyler listens to the occasional vehicle drive past his home, he smells the stench of alcohol and josh's natural sweet smell. his senses intensify, which is perhaps why he could hear the low, whispered "i love you" under josh's breath. he has never uttered those three words consecutively to form a sentence before. tyler can't reply, he remains still, and silent._  
**  
 **nononononono.**  
hedidntmeanit. hedidntmeanit. hedidntmeanit.   
  
 **nononononono.**

_**tyler wakes up, sore, and his eyes are burning. josh lays unconscious on the floor, limbs laid out loosely as small remains of cocaine accompany his side. a pool of vomit surrounds his body, which resembled to a corpse; he's pale, his mouth agape, eyes dull and blank, but open. tyler, unable to stabilize himself on two feet, crawls to the phone shakily yet hurriedly grabs onto it and dials 911.** _

**nononononono.**  
tyler claws at his face, pealing off his flesh with his own nails. he is convinced he is insane, he is pleading insanity to himself in this room. _iamfuckingcrazy._

**nononononono.**   
  
__**tyler is sat at the kitchen table, sipping at a cup of black coffee. josh presents a sheet of paper to tyler enthusiastically and slides it across the table; his smiles grows wider.  
"i realize i'm a day late." josh says, referring to his birthday, "but i was insecure of whether or not this was good enough for you to read."   
josh clears his throat and rises from his seat, exiting the kitchen. tyler turns over the piece of white paper cautiously, unsure of what the contents may be. once flipped, tyler is revealed to a poem. tyler sets the sheet down onto the table cloth, and peers at josh from the other room; josh is focused onto a book, his glasses rest at the edge of his nose and tyler carefully watches as josh's eyes swipe across the page quickly. for a reason still unclear, within that brief period of time, a sinister feeling erected within the pit of tyler's stomach. josh, while doing a simple, innocent action, still managed to erupt an ora of evil.   
  
tyler folds the paper and places it tucked under several pairs of underwear within his undergarment drawer. not a singular moment has he dared to unfold it, dared to lay eyes onto the poem. he will never willingly come into contact with the sheet again. **

**nononononono.**  
tyler fumbles to his drawer, his body clashes against the dresser as he throws the drawer onto the floor scattered with crumpled up paper. he tosses clothing into the air as he searches intensely for the poem his former lover had written for him.   
once found, he shreds it. merciless, he tears the sheet beyond a point of eligibility. he kills the last bit of romance his deranged mind remembers with josh, brutalizing it with excessive force such as josh had done to him, erasing the last bit of evidence that there was ever anything with josh.  
  
 **nononononono.  
**  
 __ **josh stumbles into tyler's bedroom, evidently intoxicated, he grins at tyler while turning of his light. "knees."  
tyler obliged as usual, unhooking his belt.  
he hears josh roughly snort something behind his back while he is (slowly) sliding off his jeans. tyler does not turn around, he has no interest in which action josh is preforming. he stares at the head frame on his bed blankly until he feels his hair pulled aggressively, another hand clawing at his shirt.  
  
**

_**tyler blanks.** _

__**  
he remembers a fist to the face for mumbling the word stop in between whimpers. he remains silent the rest of the session.  
  
tyler blanks.  
  
he remembers josh's hot lips hovering over tyler's neck. he remember's these moist lips trailing to his ear, whispering how much he liked the way bruises looked on tyler.  
  
tyler blanks.  
  
tyler awakes from his bed, josh is dead. **


End file.
